A wide variety of video playback devices are available in the marketplace. Most people own, or are familiar with, a video cassette recorder (VCR), also referred to as a video tape recorder (VTR). More recently, video recorders that use computer magnetic hard disks rather than magnetic cassette tapes to store television programs have appeared in the market. For example, the ReplayTV™ recorder and the TiVO™ recorder digitally record television programs on hard disk drives using, for example, MPEG-2 compression. Additionally, some video playback devices may record on a readable/writable digital versatile disk (DVD) rather than a magnetic disk.
Virtually all the systems that are capable of playing back video programs have a Fast Forward feature. A viewer often does not have time to watch an entire recorded television program at normal speed. The Fast Forward (FF) command allows a viewer to speed through the recorded program by skipping parts that are of little importance to the viewer. However, speed-viewing a recorded video program by repeatedly pressing the FF button on the remote control forces the viewer to focus his or her attention on the recorded program as it is played back. This makes it more difficult for the viewer to engage in some other task (e.g., cooking, homework, paying bills) while casually watching and fast-forwarding through a recorded television program.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for an improved video playback device that enables a viewer to casually watch and fast-forward through a recorded television program. In particular, there is a need for a video playback device that can fast-forward (or skip) through unimportant portions of a recorded television program without viewer intervention. More particularly, there is a need for a video playback device that can select important portions of a recorded television program for playback within a limited time frame determined by the viewer.